Google gets social with acquisition of Waterloo startup PostRank

Today, Google has acquired Waterloo-based startup PostRank, which was founded in 2007.

The move demonstrates Google’s desire to emphasize the “social” aspects of its business.

From PostRank’s website:

We are excited to announce that PostRank has been acquired by Google!

Conversations online are an important signal for advertisers, publishers, developers and consumers — but today’s tools only skim the surface of what we think is possible.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we now look forward to working with Google’s team to build more useful tools for measuring engagement online, and we’ll be sure to share details on our progress in the coming months.

PostRank (originally AideRSS, Inc.) monitors and collects social engagement events correlated with online content in real-time across the web. PostRank gathers where and when stories generate comments, bookmarks, tweets, and other forms of interaction from a host of social hubs. Publishers and people interested in their content use PostRank Data Services and Analytics to gauge influence and reach with audiences.

As this is a brand new announcement, no terms of the deal have yet been publicly disclosed by either company.